HOTD - New World - Sakhalin
by Darkpenn
Summary: In the New World, eighteen years after the Outbreak, even the first step of a long journey has its dangers.


**HOTD: New World: Sakhalin**

_In the New World, even the first step of a long journey has its dangers._

_[Author's Note: This story follows the story _HOTD: New World_, particularly the last section, _Departures_. It is eighteen years after the Outbreak. The people involved are Nozomi Hirano (daughter of Saya Takagi and Kohta Hirano), Rise Komuro (son of Takashi Komuro and Saeko Busujima, adopted and raised by Rei Miyamato and Benaro Tatagi), Hotaru Tatagi (daughter of Rei Miyamato and Benaro Tatagi), Kuzuki Marikawa (son of Shizuka Marikawa) and Kemi Tioba (daughter of Reika Arimake and Naoki Tioba).]_

Hotaru passed the battered binoculars to Rise. He surveyed the town.

"Damn," he said. "Same as the last one. And just like the towns we saw on Hokkaido."

"Zombies, zombies, nothing but zombies," said Kemi, taking the binoculars from Rise. "I make it, what, maybe a hundred? So this town is out for re-supply, I guess."

They crept back down the hill to where they had hidden the horses, and in a few minutes were back with Nozomi and Kazuki.

"Another Z-town," said Rise to them. "I'm starting to think that Honshu is the only place where there are people."

"Let's not forget that our objective is the mainland, so don't get too pessimistic," said Nozomi. "But if there are zombies around, we should move a bit further along the coast before making camp. That way, we can have a fire. I don't think we want another cold meal."

Everyone nodded, and started to re-saddle the horses. Aside from the five riding horses, they had another two for carrying their equipment and supplies.

It was ten days since they had left Japan. They had reached Hokkaido from Honshu through the Seikan Tunnel under the Tsugaru Strait, and had got to Sakhalin on the bridge between the two islands which, Hotaru's father had told them, had been completed but not officially opened at the time of the Outbreak. It had been a big step for them: none of them – in fact, no-one that they knew – had ever left Japan before. Their plan was to head up the western coast of Sakhalin, find a boat, and cross to the mainland where the strait narrowed. They could sail, having learned in Mulitenko, but they were aware that the seas could turn rough quickly, and that the mid-point of summer was past.

The five of them had known each other for as long as they could remember, and they had all been trained by their parents and the extended network of people they thought of as aunts, uncles, and grandparents. And one of the key lessons was: _don't pick fights with large groups of zombies unless there is a damn good reason to do so. _So they had avoided the towns they had come across where there were only zombies, and so far they had found nothing else.

They had plenty of supplies, although they were also adept at living off the land. Sakhalin was certainly tougher territory than Hokkaido, but even here there was edible fruit and small animals.

There was a road that followed the western coast, and they continued to ride along it. Not for the first time, Nozomi thought of her parents. Momma had made clear that she had not wanted them to go; Dad had been accepting. Saya had imposed a few conditions: one had been that she, Hotaru and Kemi all cut their hair short, and wear male-style clothes. Nozomi had thought this odd at first, but when Alice had told her about marauders, and their usual attitude to women, she saw the point. Of course, Kemi's hair was still startlingly blond, one of her inheritances from her mother, and cutting it had not made her less eye-catching.

Kemi rode up to be beside her. "I thought you might like to know," she said, "that we're passing out of the old Japanese zone and into the Russian one."

"Huh?" said Nozomi.

"Of Sakhalin. We should be entering the Russian zone any time."

"I don't understand you, Kemi. Not for the first time."

Kemi sighed. "Some people just don't do their research," she said. She showed Nozomi a book. It was _A Traveller's Guide to Sakhalin_.

"I got this when we stopped in Akita. Apparently, once upon a time, after a war between Russia and Japan, the southern half of Sakhalin came under Japanese control. The north was Russian. After World War Two, Russia took the whole island over again, but the southern part was still sometimes called the Japanese Zone."

"Oh," said Nozomi. "Does your book actually tell us anything useful?"

"Well, Sakhalin was a big producer of oil and gas, pre-Outbreak. And it also says that the mosquitos get worse as you go further north."

"Wonderful," said Nozomi.

Kemi laughed. "Starting to regret it?" she said.

"Of course not. You?"

"Not a bit. But then, I don't have to prove myself. You guys do."

Nozomi stared at her.

"Look, it's quite simple," said Kemi. "You and Rise and Hotaruand Kazuki are the sons and daughters of the Seven. It's a pretty hard act to follow. Battle of Sheroda and all that. So you have to do something impressive to get out of their shadow and make your own names."

"As I recall," said Nozomi, "your mother has a pretty big shadow of her own. She was the one who held Kaga Base together for years, and she played a crucial part at Sheroda herself. The nick-of-time thing."

"Yeah, but no-one really thinks about that. She's not a legend. She's more known for making really nice pots, which is how she wants it to be. But your dad is the one who killed more zombies than anyone else, ever, and now he signs the money. And your mum builds the tech. They don't call the things that generate electricity saya-mills for nothing, you know."

"Huh. And Rise?"

"Son of the ones who gave their lives to turn the tide. That might be an even tougher back story than yours. And Kazuki is the son of the famous Shizuka Marikawa. Of course, that means he has the advantage of being incredibly goddamn beautiful. The odd thing is that he doesn't seem to know it."

"Hmm. And Hotaru?"

"I have to say that I don't really get her. I fought alongside her in the campaign to clear the last zombies out of Nagoya City, and that girl has ice water in her veins. You know, at first I thought she resented Rise, because they don't seem to talk much. But eventually I concluded that they don't have to talk, because they can sort of read each other's minds. If they weren't pretty well brother and sister, I would bet they would become a couple."

"You seem to know an awful lot for the youngest one on this little excursion."

Kemi laughed.

They were approaching a building on the road, at the top of a hill. As they drew closer, they saw it was an old service station. The signs were in Cyrillic lettering.

"What did I tell you?" said Nozomi. "The Russian zone."

"Might be a good place to stop for the night," said Nozomi.

They checked the buildings, and there were no zombies or any other sign of life. Any supplies had been removed years ago. But there was a solid roof and sturdy doors, and wood for a fire. Before long, they were cooking dinner.

As they ate, Kazuki said: "There are some plants that I can use to make some ointment that will help keep these damn mosquitos away. It's still light outside, so if one of you will come with me to stand watch I'll collect as much as I can and start preparing it."

"Sure, I'll do it," said Rise.

When they returned, Kazuki was carrying an armful of leaves, which he proceeded to boil.

"We saw something a bit further along the coast that we should check out," Rise said. "A big building, right on the water."

"Okay," said Nozomi. "But tomorrow. For now, I'll take the first watch."

* * *

"This is odd," said Hotaru.

They were in the building. They were looking at a large boat, obviously military in origin. And apparently deserted.

The building itself was a boathouse, open to the sea but designed to protect what was inside from the elements. The boat was tied securely to a little jetty, where the five of them now stood. The boat rocked gently on the tide.

"It looks seaworthy," said Nozomi. "This could be our ticket to the mainland."

Weapons drawn, they went on board. They split into two groups to search, and met in what appeared to be the captain's cabin.

"Nobody home, but I counted fourteen bunks, so that was probably the size of the crew," said Kazuki. "There's no food on board, nothing. Maybe they went looking for supplies and got ambushed."

Kemi was leafing through a handwritten ledger on the desk. She pulled a book out of her pack.

"What's that you've got?" said Kazuki.

"Russian-Japanese dictionary," said Kemi. "Some of us came prepared, you know." She started to look up various words, and eventually said: "The last entry was made eleven years ago, according to this. I guess they had been able to survive after the Outbreak by staying on the boat and only coming ashore when they needed supplies. But then their luck ran out. It looks as if they were nearly out of fuel as well, that word appears a lot in the last few entries."

Nozomi nodded. "Hotaru, you and I will check the engine, see if it's still operational and how much fuel there is," she said. "Rise, Kazuki, you do another search, see if you can find any guns or whatever else might be useful. Kemi, see if you can do any more translation, try and find something that might help us. Back here in ten."

When they returned, Rise and Kazuki laid several machine guns and clips on the table, as well as a pair of pistols, in holsters. And something that appeared to be a flare pistol.

"Cleaned up, I think these will work alright," said Rise. "And we checked out that big machine gun on the deck. Same story, and there's about two hundred rounds for it."

Hotaru picked up the two pistols and read the label on the holster. "Makarov nine millimetre," she said. "Anybody mind if I have these?" Everyone nodded.

"The engine looks like it would work," said Nozomi. "The batteries are shot but there's a manual start-up for the engine. Not much fuel, though. Not enough to get us safely to the mainland, I think."

"As far as I can tell, there was only six of them left, plus the captain, at the end," said Kemi. "Which would explain the spare guns. As for the fuel, do you think there would be enough for four or five kilometres?"

"Probably," said Nozomi. "What's four or five kilometres away?"

Kemi pointed to a map on the captain's table. It showed the local region. She pointed at something. "This," she said. "An oil refinery. There might be fuel there."

They all pored over the map. Eventually, Hotaru said: "Let's go."

* * *

It took them a day to load the horses and prepare the boat, which included learning the controls, with Kemi struggling to translate the instructions. Kazuki had produced a paste which, while smelling foul, went some way to keeping the voracious mosquitos at bay.

Not knowing the territory, especially the coastline, they were reluctant to travel in the dark, so they decided to spend the night on the boat and set off the next morning. This gave them the chance, as well, for some hunting, which provided them with fresh meet.

Over dinner, as Kemi continued to examine the log, she said: "_Archangel._"

"What was that?" said Nozomi.

"_Archangel._ It was the name of this boat. Still is, I suppose."

"What does it mean?"

"No idea."

"This refinery thing," said Rise. "Can we be sure that there is fuel there?"

"Not at all, but I heard that there was a group of people who lived in a refinery at Yokohama for several years after the Outbreak," said Kazuki. "There was tons of fuel there, apparently, in storage. The people would trade it for food with other survivors. I don't know what happened in the end."

"My parents always said that living off the bits and pieces of the pre-Outbreak world was a losing proposition," said Nozomi. "Eventually, stuff runs out, they said. But I think they just didn't like going back to the towns and cities. A lot of people didn't. Bad memories, I guess. And of course the zombies owned the cities, for a long time. They still own Sendai, Tokyo and a few other places. Too many of them to clear out."

"Do you ever wonder what it was like?" said Kazuki. "The world before the Outbreak?"

"Momma said there were over a hundred million people in Japan alone," said Nozomi. "Some cities had millions. And everyone had cars. And computers. And little telephones that you carried in your pocket. Hard to believe."

"My mum and dad said there were huge buildings stuffed with food," said Kemi. "You bought it frozen, which means very cold, I think, and put it in something called a microwave, and that made it hot in a few seconds."

"I've heard that too," said Hotaru. "Not sure I believe the microwave part."

"Maybe China will be different," said Rise. "Benaro had been there for a while, before the Outbreak. He said there were over a billion people in China. A billion! Incredible."

They were silent for a while, trying to imagine a world they could never know.

Eventually, Rise went up to the deck, to take the first watch.

* * *

Nozomi, who was driving the boat, slowed to a near-halt. She put the binoculars to her eyes. It was an hour after dawn.

The refinery's best days were well and truly behind it, but at least it was still standing. No sign of zombies or survivors.

There was a concrete jetty. Nozomi headed for it.

"On foot or should we take the horses?" said Kazuki.

"Until we know more, on foot," said Nozomi. "Were those guns cleaned and tested?"

"Yes, and of course we have our own stuff," said Rise. "Someone should stay on the boat. So who's going ashore?"

Nozomi thought about it. "I'm the best with the tech, and Rise and Hotaru are the best fighters," she said. "So we go, Kazuki and Kemi stay here."

"Hey!" said Kemi. "Just 'cos I'm the youngest – "

"This is not a democracy," said Kazuki.

"But there might be Russian signs and things that need to be translated!"

"True," said Hotaru. "So we will borrow your dictionary."

"And you should take a look at the engine and work out what sort of fuel it needs, Kemi," said Rise. "And then translate it into words we can read, write it down for us. If we bring back the wrong thing, the whole mission will be a bust."

Kemi sighed. Reluctantly, she nodded agreement.

They pulled up to the jetty. As they did so, the engine began to splutter. Nozomi turned it off.

"I would say that we are now running on fumes," said Nozomi. "So let's hope we find something."

After another application of Kazuki's paste, Nozomi, Rise and Hotaru set off. Nozomi and Rise each carried one of the Russian machine guns. They moved carefully, slowly, and as silently as possible.

After a while, they passed through the broken gate of the refinery, and came to a sign with arrows. Nozomi took out the dictionary. After considerable page-turning, she said: "This way to the storage area, I think. If I'm reading this right."

They began to follow the signs. After a while, they entered a complex of crumbling buildings and broken machinery. They came to a large pile of drums. Many of them had broken open due to rust, but others appeared to be still sealed.

"We want diesel fuel," said Nozomi, showing the others the paper Kemi had provided. "This is the Russian word for it."

"We'll need something to move them with," said Hotaru. She hunted around, eventually finding a low push-cart and a rope.

Rise knocked on one of the barrels. It made an empty, metallic sound. The noise seemed to echo around the whole place.

"Okay, perhaps that was not so smart," he said.

They listened.

There was a scraping, shuffling sound. Heading for them.

"Damnit!" said Nozomi.

They started to run, away from the sound. But as they rounded a corner, into an open area, they saw another group of zombies. The zombies had not seen them, but appeared to be searching.

There was an empty building, not much more than broken-down shed. The three of them ducked into it.

Through a broken window, they watched the zombies move closer. They began to shuffle past.

The last one in the line stopped. It looked around. Then it seemed to sniff the air.

_The ointment_, thought Nozomi.

The zombie pointed at the shed and gave a howl.

"No time for hiding now," said Rise. He stepped into the doorway, lifted his gun, and fired.

Hotaru began to kick at the back wall of the shed. It was, in fact, more solid than it had looked. Nozomi began to whack at it with the butt of her gun.

Rise ejected the spent clip and rammed in another. He had put down five zombies but there were more, and others were emerging from various buildings.

"Whenever you're ready, back there," he said.

Finally, several planks in the wall gave way. Nozomi, gun up, went through first, followed by Hotaru. Rise fired the rest of the magazine and then went through.

They were in something like an alley. If the zombies trapped them here they would not have much chance.

Nozomi saw a rusted ladder. She led the way up. It took them to the flat roof of a building, but there were holes and broken sections. There was another building not far, at the same level, with a two-metre gap between them.

Zombies were already trying to come up the ladder.

"Well, this is going to be fun," said Rise. "But I don't see much choice."

They ran for the far side, trying to avoid the areas that looked unstable. They reached the edge, but it was far from solid. Close up, the gap looked bigger than they had thought it would be.

"O – kay," said Nozomi.

Without a word, Hotaru took a few steps back, and then ran forward, launching herself into the air. As she took off, a section of the roof crumbled.

She made the other building – just. She stood up and dusted herself off.

_Ice water in her veins_, thought Nozomi.

Hotaru still had the rope that she had found before, looped over her shoulder. Now she unwrapped it and threw an end back. Rise grabbed it and started to tie it around Nozomi's waist.

"Why am I going before you?" said Nozomi to him.

"Because you're a girl," said Rise.

"That's not a reason," she said.

"Okay, how about this. If I fall, it will need the two of you to haul me up. Happy now?"

Nozomi considered.

"Not a whole lot of time to debate this," said Rise, pointing to the troop of zombies running across the roof towards them.

"Next time, you go first," said Nozomi.

"If there's a next time, I will be happy to," said Rise.

Nozomi took a running leap. She made the far edge – by an inch. She began to totter backwards, and then Hotaru pulled her to safety. Nozomi untied the rope and threw it back to Rise. But as she did so, she realised that another chunk of the roof had fallen away. Now the gap looked too far to jump.

Rise tied the rope around himself. The zombies were only ten metres away. He turned and fired – and as he did so, the section of roof he was standing on collapsed.

Hotaru, with the rope wound around her arms, cried out in pain as the rope snapped taut. She began to slide towards the edge, pulled by Rise's weight.

Nozomi grabbed the rope, and together they stopped Rise from falling further. He was now suspended over a fifteen metre drop. If he fell, he might survive the fall, but was unlikely to survive the howling zombies gathering below, especially since he had dropped his machine gun when he had fallen.

Slowly, hand over hand, Hotaru and Nozomi began to pull him up. Finally, he was close enough to reach the edge. They helped him up. The three of them looked at each other.

"Like I said, fun," said Rise.

"Shut up," said Nozomi.

Hotaru looked from one of them to the other. "Huh," she said.

They found a door that led to a staircase that took them back to the ground. There were no zombies in sight but they could hear them moving around. There was a lot of them.

"We need to get back to those drums," said Nozomi. "We need something to draw the zombies away."

Hotaru pointed to a sign with an arrow and something that looked like a warning. "What does that say?" she said.

Nozomi looked through the dictionary. Eventually, she said: " 'Waste oil pond, 300 metres, danger', I think."

Hotaru started heading that way. A little puzzled, the others followed. In a few minutes, they came to a pond – actually an open concrete tank set into the ground – filled with heavy black oil. It was surrounded by a heavy wire fence.

"If we set this on fire, the zombies are sure to come to see the show," said Hotaru.

"And just how do you propose to do that?" said Nozomi.

Hotaru pulled something from the pocket of her jacket. It was the flare pistol from the _Archangel_.

"Always with the plan," said Rise.

"Of course," said Hotaru. She pointed the pistol into the air and fired. The flare, a red ball, shot upwards and over the fence. It landed in the pool. Almost immediately, the oil began to burn, releasing a huge plume of acrid smoke.

"Well, if that doesn't get their attention, I don't know what will," said Rise.

The three of them ran back to the buildings, finding a hiding place behind a pile of pipes. They watched the zombies, maybe sixty of them, run towards the fire.

When all the zombies had passed, the three of them ran back to the storage area. They began to hunt for full drums of diesel.

"Here," said Nozomi. "These look like the ones." She pointed to writing on the side, which matched what Kemi had written.

Hotaru pulled over the little cart, and they began to load the drums and tie them in place. The cart could only hold three drums.

"You two push, I'll go shotgun," said Nozomi, hefting her weapon. "Or machine gun, in this case."

They started back to the boat. They made it through the gate, and then looked back. Several dozen zombies were coming after them.

They could see the boat now. Kemi and Kazuki could see them too, and the zombies. They could see Kemi on the bridge, trying to start the engine.

They were nearly at the start of the pier, but the zombies were gaining.

Nozomi turned, aimed and fired. The bullets cut into the troop of zombies. Half a dozen went down but the others kept on.

The gun suddenly stopped. A jam.

"Damn unreliable Russian crap!" muttered Nozomi. She tried to eject the magazine but it wouldn't come.

"You push, I shoot," said Hotaru.

"With what?" said Nozomi.

In answer, Hotaru put her hands behind her back, under her jacket. She pulled out the two Makarovs. "Rock and roll," she said.

A gun in each hand, she fired, again and again.

Nozomi grabbed the rail of the cart next to Rise and they pushed towards the boat.

She glanced back. Faced with Hotaru's deadly fire, the zombies had hesitated in their advance. But even as Nozomi watched, the two pistols fell silent, empty. Hotaru turned and started running for the boat. The zombies came after her. The lead ones were only five metres away, now.

There was a _boom-boom-boom_. It was the heavy gun from the _Archangel_, Kazuki firing. The closest rank of zombies were blown backwards.

Rise and Nozomi, with the fuel, had reached the boat. As Hotaru re-loaded and began to shoot again, Rise and Nozomi began to roll the first drum up the gangplank and onto the deck.

Kemi had finally got the engine going. The boat jerked at the mooring rope.

They got the second drum on board. But the zombies were getting closer.

"Hotaru!" shouted Kazuki, at the deck gun. "I can't fire this thing without hitting you!"

"Get going!" she shouted back, still firing. "Don't wait for me!"

They had the third barrel on board. Rise slipped the mooring rope and jumped onto the boat. The _Archangel_ started to pull away.

Hotaru holstered her guns and ran for the boat. She leaped the widening gap – and into the arms of Rise. The two of them fell to the deck in a tangle.

"Thanks, brother," she said.

But now the zombies were at the end of the pier. Three of them jumped for the boat. One didn't make it, falling back into the water. But the others reached the deck.

Nozomi took her machine gun by the barrel and swung. It caught one of the zombies on the temple, and it went overboard in a gush of black blood. The last zombie reached out for her – and then suddenly fell back, dead. There was a crossbow arrow in its head.

Nozomi looked around. Kemi, at the bridge, held up her bow.

Nozomi gave her a little salute.

The _Archangel_ was thirty metres away from the jetty now. The zombies began to shuffle back to the refinery.

The engine began to cough.

"Now we find out if we took the right stuff," said Rise.

* * *

The boat pulled into the shallows near the mouth of a river. The five of them jumped off, into the waist-deep water, and waded ashore.

"So this is the mainland," said Kemi.

"Somehow, I thought it would be more … interesting," said Kazuki, studying the rather bare landscape.

"If you want interesting, you can go back to Sakhalin and discuss it with the zombies," said Rise, with a little laugh.

"Just think about this," said Nozomi. "We are the first Japanese to reach the rest of the world since the Outbreak. So take a moment."

They considered it, and looked around.

"And … we're done," said Hotaru.

"What's next?" said Kemi.

"Get the horses off, check the local area," said Nozomi. "Depending on what we find, maybe we'll take the boat upriver for a bit. We can take our time. There's no hurry."

"Sure," said Kemi. "It's a whole new world."

END


End file.
